Trump and President Bill Clinton each have had very little to say about their own connections to alleged sex trafficker and registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein—except to say that neither one of them now has a friendship with the supposed billionaire financier and neither has flown recently on his plane, fittingly nicknamed the Lolita Express.

Which is not to say they have never boarded the jet. Both men acknowledge that they may have been passengers on Epstein’s infamous flights. “But so was [actor] Kevin Spacey,” Trump says.

“The only reason I was on that jet 26, I mean, four times, was it was the best deal on [travel app] Kayak.com,” Clinton adds in the cartoon.

In the hastily assembled cold open clip from the latest episode, Trump begins by addressing the nation about his ties to Epstein. “Sure, I told New York Magazine in 2002 that Epstein is a ‘terrific guy,’” Trump says, citing a real quote. “But that was before I found out that I said, later in the same sentence, that ‘he likes beautiful women … on the younger side.”

Then, cartoon Bill Clinton joins him. “Hey, everybody it’s me, America’s cold sore,” he says. “Every few years I pop up to remind you of your bad choices in the ‘90s.”

“You know, Bill and I may disagree on health care and criminal justice,” Trump says—as Clinton chimes in with “barely”—“but we are unified against these all but undeniable accusations.”

In a town that has shown him very little love, President Donald Trump has found Three Stooges who will always step forward in his defense—Attorney General Bill Barr, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Alabama), and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina).

This week, it was Graham who tried to hold White House critics at bay. He appeared on Fox & Friends on Monday morning to champion Trump for attacks he made on Twitter on July 14.

In those posts, the president told a group of Democratic Congresswomen of color, better known as The Squad—Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York), Ilhan Omar (Minnesota), Ayanna Pressley (Massachusetts), and Rashida Tlaib (Michigan)—to “go back” to where “they came” from.

And, referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s caution to the four freshmen legislators last week not to bash moderate House members, Trump noted, “I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!”

Graham—who played golf with the president on Sunday after the president sent those tweets said, “We all know that [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] and this crowd are a bunch of communists, they hate Israel, they hate our own country, they’re calling the guards along our border—the Border Patrol agents—concentration camp guards,” Graham was quoted by the Beast. “They accuse people who support Israel as doing it for the benjamins, they are anti-Semitic, they are anti-America. Don’t get them—aim higher.”

He further called on the president to take aim at their policies rather than personally attacking them.“They’re socialists. They’re anti-Semitic,” Graham declared. “They stand for all the things that most Americans disagree with. Make them the face of the future of the Democratic Party. You will destroy the Democratic Party.”

Co-host Steve Doocy, meanwhile, wondered if Graham was saying the president went “too far” with his attacks. Graham, however, wasn’t about to go down that road.

“I don’t think—aim higher,” he stated. “They are American citizens. They won an election. Take on their policies.”

Trump was obviously extremely pleased with Graham’s on-air performance. A short time after the senator’s interview aired, the president fired off a series of tweets quoting Graham calling the Squad anti-America, finishing it off by asking: “Need I say more?”

While Republicans other than Graham in Washington have remained largely silent on Trump urging women of color to leave the country, the president’s tweets Sunday provided Democrats with an opportunity to show a united front, however temporary.

These armchair activists hope exposure to their pictures over time will do the quiet work of normalizing fat people. “If I manage to convince one fat person that they have a right to live a decent life, then I consider that a form of activism,” says Przybyl.

According to The Daily Beast, some 45 million Americans go on diets every year. Over half of those dieters are women—which is no surprise since research shows that many women have a relationship to food that is characterized by fear, loathing, and anxiety.

Just ask any fat woman about eating a burger in public and you’ll probably get a lengthy sigh. But in a world where we shop, date, and make friends virtually, what happens when fat women post pictures of themselves eating online?

The photos are sparking a discussion about who gets to eat in public, and why. Rumsey searched women eating food online and found a bounty of stock photos—all of thin, mostly white women delicately nibbling on salads. Rumsey searched “women eating food” and a couple of variations of that on Instagram and found a scant three photos. (#womeneatingbananas came up with hundreds of posts, though.)

“I wanted a place where you could see real women eating without apology, without talking about how good or bad they were being,” Rumsey told The Daily Beast.

And the movement has gone worldwide: The language of the captions changes from English to Finnish to Portuguese. Lots of the captions are long, with statements about who inspired them to post the pictures. One woman grins, a pile of ramen cascading from her mouth. #sorrynotsorry, her hashtag reads.

The comments often include applause emojis. The women are often thanked for posting. Lots of people write ‘yum!’ It’s surprisingly wholesome, with not a troll in sight.

“You guys! I ate a donut! And I don’t feel bad about it all!” posted one woman. “So happy for you,” responded another.

A U.S. drone was shot down during an “unprovoked attack” in international airspace above the Strait of Hormuz on June 20, according to U.S. Central Command; although Iran’s Revolutionary Guard disputed that claim—saying that it had struck the aircraft after it entered the nation’s airspace.

It was another “shot heard round the world”—but the U.S. Congress is hoping that the results will not be the same: combat and bloodshed, this time in Iran.

And as the possibility of armed conflict with Iran grows stronger, legislators are struggling to settle on what—if anything—they are obligated to do, as the only branch with the constitutional authority to declare war.

Senators Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) co-authored a letter to President Trump on June 18, calling on him to explain his recent decisions to deploy additional troops to the Middle East. In the letter, the Senators asked for more information on the troops’ missions and expressed concern about escalating tensions leading to a war between the United States and Iran. They underscored the fact that the Trump Administration does not have the authority to start a war with Iran without authorization from Congress. Other signatories included Senators Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon), Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) , Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut), and Rand Paul (R-Kentucky).

In addition, Kaine and several others, including Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), had filed an amendment the week before to the annual Department of Defense spending authorization that would block funds for a conflict with Iran unless Congress explicitly authorizes military action.

“The administration desperately wants to avoid coming to Congress on this, and it looks like they’re constructing an argument, the purpose of which is to avoid Congress,” said Kaine. “The purpose is not really to make a great argument about the 2001 AUMF.”

In the past, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has linked Iran with al Qaeda—which is specifically named in the 2001 AUMF—and claimed that the Iranian government has supported them, the news outlet reported. That claim is hotly contested by Iran experts.

President Trump, himself, has said repeatedly that he does not wish to escalate military actions into a war—but he also has refused to cooperate with Congress in recent weeks. What happens now is anybody’s guess.

Prince Philip of the UK’s royal House of Windsor warned his grandson against marrying Meghan Markle, telling Prince Harry: “One steps out with actresses, one doesn’t marry them,” a new report by Britain’s The Sunday Times claims.

The straight-talking nonagenarian, who is Queen Elizabeth’s consort, is said to have made the comment in 2017, after Prince William also had advised Harry to think about whether he was “sure” he wanted to rush into marriage to Meghan, The Daily Beast reported on June 17.

She also quotes another source on the roots of the feud with his brother: “Harry felt like William and Kate didn’t make enough effort when Meghan arrived at Kensington Palace; that they didn’t roll out the red carpet for her.”

If Walton is successful, the review would be a win for those suing for the report’s release because it would bring in a judge to look at the reasoning over redactions. It is unclear whether the version of the report made public Thursday will be identical to what the department releases under FOIA.

“That’s something we’ll have to work through and something I’ll have to think about,” Walton said.

Indeed, according to Politico, Justice Department attorney Courtney Enlow declined to say whether the version of the report made public Thursday will be identical to what the department releases under FOIA. Nor could she say whether she’d be prepared to commit to that during another hearing set for May 2 on the BuzzFeed case and a related suit.

“I can’t give you a timeline,” Enlow said.

However, the judge said Tuesday that he plans to “fast track” the issue of the report and what information in it must be disclosed, then deal with other records from Mueller’s probe.

Walton said he hopes any disputes will be limited because the Justice Department makes the bulk of the document public.

“I would hope that the government is as transparent as it can be,” the judge said.

Lawmakers told the news outlet they were concerned that the embassy in Riyadh did not have knowledge of what was discussed between Kushner, MBS and King Salman—in light of the increasingly fragile relationship between the two countries following the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

Lawmakers are particularly interested in understanding the back and forth between the United States and Saudi Arabia regarding a potential nuclear deal, The Daily beast reported. Indeed, the website reported last week that the Trump administration is still actively working to make a deal to send U.S. nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia and that American energy businesses are still hoping to cash in on Riyadh’s push for energy diversification.

The only facts released to date on Kushner’s travels are that he stopped in Saudi Arabia and, while there, he met with the royal family to discuss U.S.-Saudi cooperation, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and economic investment in the region, according to the White House.

The State Department did have a senior official in attendance, but he was not part of the State Department team in Saudi. He is a senior member of the department focused on Iran, according to a source with direct knowledge of the official’s presence in Riyadh, The Daily Beast said.

When a member of the administration travels to another country, the embassy often helps coordinate the trip and provides some kind of security. This time, though, the Saudi government provided security for Kushner and his entourage, sources told The Daily Beast And the embassy was largely left in the dark on the details of Kushner’s schedule and his conversations with Saudi officials, according to two individuals with knowledge of the trip to the country.

The State Department referred The Daily Beast to the White House for comment. “This reporting is not true and the sources are misinformed,” a senior administration official told the news outlet, adding that the embassy in Riyadh was involved in Kushner’s visit and meetings.

At just the time when the United States should be defending the sanctity of its electoral process, the Trump administration is cutting back on efforts to fight foreign interference at ballot boxes nationwide, The Daily Beast reported on February 13.

“Our key allies are wondering why the United States is not more coordinated and not more proactive in dealing with this,” said one of the DHS officials. “They don’t understand why the U.S. is not getting its act together.”

A DHS spokesperson confirmed that some people have been taken off the task forces and moved to other roles in the department. The spokesperson added that the department is bringing on new people to do election security work.

“In the run up to the 2018 elections, DHS staffed the newly created [the] Elections Task Force and Countering Foreign Influence Task Force by temporarily assigning personnel from across the department. The work of these task forces continues to this day and is being institutionalized as a permanent effort. While some of the personnel who were brought on to serve on these task forces in temporary assignments have returned to their regular roles, we are also currently hiring new employees into permanent election positions to build out our team and support our efforts for 2020 and beyond,” Sendek assured the news outlet.

“In some sense it’s not surprising that these changes are happening,” he said. “There was nothing set in stone that said these teams were going to stay in formation. At least that was my understanding.”

Others said they found the change concerning.

“The Trump administration intelligence chiefs in their worldwide threat assessment clearly stated that the use of influence operations from countries like Russia, China and Iran poses a significant threat to the country,” said John Cohen, the former deputy undersecretary for Intelligence and Analysis at DHS. “If these reports are true, it’s highly disturbing that the department and the administration are not more focused on dealing with that threat.”

“It won’t be 2016 all over again—the threat is changing,” said a former DHS official. “A thinly staffed task force working on that is not going to be equipped to keep up with the adversary.”

Since Howard Schultz announced his presidential aspirations on 60 Minutes in late January, Democrats have gone into panic mode—fearing that the former Starbucks CEO will filch votes from their column in the 2020 election.

According to a February 1 report by The Daily Beast, American Bridge, a progressive super PAC that focuses on opposition research, already has compiled its first “oppo” hit against Schultz, who would run as an Independent candidate.

Indeed, the news outlet says, the PAC pitched its reporters on a story about Schultz’s charitable foundation—suggesting that “he uses it to minimize his personal tax bill even as the foundation spends lavishly on executive compensation and overhead.”

Bridge dug into the foundation’s expenditures and found that it “used its tax-free funding to spend lavishly while Howard Schultz receives tax deductions,” according to a research document the group shared with The Daily Beast. It focused on $400,000 in furniture expenses during fiscal year 2016, and its executive director’s $21,000-per-month salary.

The foundation’s latest annual financial filing discloses that Schultz and his wife, Sherri Kersch Schultz, donated $18 million in the year ending June 2017. The foundation gave out about $7.6 million in grants in that time, and spent just under $2.2 million on operating and administrative expenses, including compensation.

What’s more, The Daily Beast notes, Bridge isn’t the only prominent Democratic super PAC eyeing an offensive against Schultz. Priorities USA Action, a group founded by Bill Burton, one of Schultz’s top consultants, has also threatened to go after him if he declares a presidential candidacy.

Schultz has said that he will take a few months before deciding whether or not to formally enter the race. But already he’s taken steps that have given off the impression that this is more than just a vanity project—and could constitute a political threat to a Democratic candidate.

Underwritten by taxpayers and beset by problems, the third-party-operated U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities are known for minimal oversight and what immigration advocates say uncomfortably resembles slave labor: Prisoners who choose to work rather than sit in overcrowded dormitories are paid $3 a day to work in the kitchen and as little as $1 a day to sweep floors.

Yesica, a 23-year-old who fled her native El Salvador to escape gang persecution and has spent the last two years locked up in the Joe Corley Detention Facility in southeast Texas, told the Daily Beast with the help of a translator, “This is a really terrible place. It’s inhumane. It’s like a torture chamber….I don’t breathe fresh air; haven’t been outside since I’ve been in here.”

Being in the U.S. illegally is a misdemeanor offense, and immigration detention is technically a civil matter; not a criminal process. But the reality looks much different. The Daily Beast reported that as of October 20, ICE was detaining an average of 44,631 people every day—an all-time high. Now, ICE has told the online news outlet that its latest detention numbers are even higher: 44,892 people as of December 8. Its budget request for the current fiscal year anticipates detaining 52,000 people daily.

Yesica’s employer and jailer, the private prisons giant GEO Group, expects its earnings to grow to $2.3 billion this year, The Daily Beast notes, reporting that—like other private prison companies—GEO made large donations to President Donald Trump’s campaign and inauguration.

In essence, immigration advocates say, the detention corporations pay the president and his congressional allies.

What’s more, Mary Small of the Detention Watch Network told The Daily Beast, the public still lacks “incredibly basic information about immigration detention and how private prison companies are profiting from it.”

She added, “Even though billions of taxpayer dollars are being obligated to private prison companies, the contracts between them and the federal government aren’t publicly available, so we don’t know how much these companies are being paid, how many people they’re holding, or how long their contracts last. This culture of secrecy—bolstered by revolving door politics and political contributions—[has] paved the way for a rapid and reckless expansion of the detention system.”

The differences between for-profit immigration prisons and public immigration prisons are substantial, according to recent research by The American Immigration Council based on data from fiscal year 2015. One of the major findings: For-profit prisons “consistently and substantially” hold immigrants longer than public ones—about 87 days on average for people ultimately granted relief, versus 33.3 days in public prisons.

Fifteen of the 179 detainees who died in ICE custody between October 2003 and February 2018 were held at a single private immigration detention center, run by CoreCivic in Arizona, according to the Migration Policy Institute. At another privately run immigration detention jail, GEO Group’s Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California, there were seven suicide attempts between December 2016 and October 2017 (and at least one success), The Daily Beast reports.